Since the Dawn of Time
by ghostofnoodlewrap
Summary: Could there be something that will tip the balance for circle Daybreak? A forgotten race? Or is the new prophecy wrong? Is the new boy a savior or a spy? Book two of 'just a little bit lost,' but will stand alone.
1. A long awaited return maybe?

A/N: This is my first night world fanfic. This story ties in with 'blood red, snow white.' It doesn't matter if you haven't read it, it can stand-alone. When this story finishes, it has a sequel of sorts in chapter 6 and upwards of blood red, snow white. It does have slight crossover themes, but is not in crossover, as what it is crossed with is not very well known. Set after Witchlight.

Disclaimer: I do not own any The Night World, It belongs to L.J Smith. I do not own Rueben, he belongs to Annie Dalton. I do not own a large piece of chocolate cake, though I really wish I had one.

An incredibly long awaited return……… Maybe?

A group of witches sat around a brazier burning incense. The heady smoke was disorientating, but that was the way it was meant to be. The spells they chanted were ones to create a group vision. Already they were slipping into trances. Then, as the chanting reached its climax, a vision began.

It wasn't the usual sort of vision. There were no pictures. Only sound. And it didn't rhyme.

Portals open and portals close.

Light from another world spills through windows.

A race not seen since the dawn of time.

Lost among the clouds.

The boy woke up. That was strange in itself. He never slept. So why had he been 'asleep'.

He sat up. His head throbbed but he didn't care. In the air he could smell cars and smoke. On the floor was a letter. He picked it up, brushing a hand over a seal that seemed so familiar, but was so far away. He broke the seal and read it.

To the one meant to find this.

You are in a place called the Night World. Walk out of this ally, turn right, and continue until this road ends. Take the left road. Turn again at the third right. Carry on for five hundred meters. Walk up the driveway to the large white house on top of the hill. Show your tags and demand entrance. They will tell you all you need to know.

Good luck.

The boy smiled. They were still as vague as ever. Slowly he turned and walked towards his distant target.


	2. Arrival

_Disclaimer: I own no characters. They all belong to L.J. Smith or Annie Dalton. Nor do I own a flock of ninja ducks. All plot basis and characters belong to their original and respective author, so please don't sue me._

Arrival

Several hours after he had set off, the boy arrived at the end of a long, winding driveway. He looked over his shoulder at the hill he had climbed and caught sight of the setting sun. He turned back to the large white house in front of him. House was the wrong word. It looked like a palace. Lifting a hand, he pressed his finger to the overly ornate doorbell. The produced noise echoed through the house. Standing back, he waited for someone to answer his call.

Dully through the thick oak doors, he heard footsteps running down a corridor. Then there was a skid and a crash. He could hear what might have been a muttered curse as a person picked himself or herself up from the floor. He chuckled under his breath; perhaps his stay here would be exiting. Ritually, he silenced himself as the wooden door was pulled back.

A girl of around 17 years opened the door to him. She was thin and tan. Her hair was a subtle blend of brown and silver, playing at, but not quite succeeding in being a natural human tone. Her eyes were soulful and amber, but the eyes of an animal, not a human. Calmly, the boy stared at her, making it clear she would be the first to speak.

"Hello, Can I help you?" The girl inquired politely.

"I was told to come here," he said bluntly. "By higher powers." He added when he saw her questioning stare. "They told me to show you these," he fished out what looked like dog tags from under his shirt, "and 'demand entrance'."

"I think," the girl said, after critically eying the tags, "you'd better come in."

As he stepped inside, he saw her scan the area with a hawk-like gaze, before slamming the door shut behind them.

In silence, I led the boy through the maze of corridors of our currant safe house. I took a careful route, so we didn't meet anyone; I had no idea who this kid was, or who the 'higher powers' he spoke of were. Using the time I had, I took in his appearance and committed it to memory.

He was all honey tones. Light caramel skin was stretched over lean muscles. He was slim and fine boned. He wore low-slung combat trousers, a plain indigo t-shirt with a small gold logo in the corner. I had already seen the dog tags around his neck, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a kind of bracelet on his left wrist.

His face was sweetness. His lips, a tone darker than his skin, seemed too full for a boy, but were right on his face. His eyes were an unnaturally coloured and unnaturally clear gold. They seem to burn an everlasting fire, framed in pale eyelashes. His hair was a mix of honey, caramel and toffee, all arranged in a mess of baby dreadlocks. Though there seemed to be deep wisdom in his face, I guessed he couldn't be any more than sixteen years old.

After about five minutes of twisting walkways, we arrived in a deserted sitting room. The décor in the room was a cream theme, but a small fire in the fireplace cast orange light into the room.

"Wait here," I told him. "I'll go fetch some 'higher powers,' who can explain all this better than me," I said adding sarcasm when I quoted him. To my surprise, he blanked me, just nodding absently, as if he were concentrated hard on something else.

Dashing from the room, I ran at inhuman speeds to Lord Thierry and Lady Hannah's room. I halted at the door and brushed dust from my clothes before knocking. I knew better than just barging in there. I had heard from others some of the things they do in there... I cleared my throat.

" Lord Thierry, Lady Hannah, there is a visitor here I think you might like to meet."

* * *

The girl took off at a startling pace. It was within bounds for a human being, but only one with incredibly long legs. Much longer than hers. It confirmed what I had suspected. She was not a human.

We walked through the maze of corridors and rooms for around five minutes. In this time we never met another soul. I guessed the girl was deliberately avoiding letting me have contact with any other people. She was clearly following some kind of orders.

She stopped suddenly, startling me, but I didn't let it show. She led me into a small sitting room, well small compared to some of the other rooms I'd seen.

"Wait here…" she told me.

She said something else after that, but I wasn't listening. I needed time to think. I didn't know what had happened to the others. Where had they ended up? Heck! I didn't even know exactly where I was either. I didn't know how long it would take us to find one another again, or how long it would be until our enemies found our trail. I knew barley anything. The one thing I did know was to keep what I could remember to myself. Hastily, I created a shield around my mind. It wouldn't hold under strong interrogation, but it would do for now.

I heard voice coming down the corridor outside. Strange, I hadn't heard the girl leave the room. She entered, followed by two more people, one male and one female. They stood there, but I didn't study their faces. I felt power coming off their auras, and that was far more interesting to me. The guy was sheer power. He stood tall and proud. He had a feeling of ancientness coming off him. He was old, though he looked only nineteen. His age was reflected in his eyes, rather than etched on his skin.

The girl seemed younger, in spirit and in body. But she was still old: though her body was seventeen, her mind greatly exceeded that.

" I am Lady Hannah, and this is Lord Thierry," the young woman gave names for me to give the new faces. "And I guess this is welcome to circle daybreak." I nodded, my eyes meeting hers. She bore no reaction to my unearthly gaze. "We're a group of various humans, witches, werewolves, shape shifters and vampires…" She looked at me strangely, as though she had expected more of a reaction than my blank gaze. "But you knew that right…?" She gave a nervous chuckle at the end.

" I know nothing of this world," I told her, giving her the sweetest smile I could. "I arrived here in the middle of the night and found a letter that gave me directions here. That was after a slight err… accident with a scatter portal." I looked at the mixture of blank and interested gazes. "I have no idea where I am and what I'm doing here, I just know that I have to get home, my world needs me." I looked at three now stunned gazes. " I'm just a little bit lost"

"I'm not sure if we have time to help you get back home," Thierry said nervously, "we're busy preparing for a fast approaching apocalypse."

" … And that is supposed to surprise me how?" I said, raising an eyebrow. " I would be surprised if you weren't going through one! It seems to be all the rage these days." I shook my head. " my world's already finished its. I was one of the four main players, though my main contribution was going missing." Now the faces were truly shocked.

" Oh, I'm Rueben, Rueben Bird."


	3. Not the Wildpower?

_A/N: Thank you ShadowKissedVictoria for reviewing. Virtual caramel shortbread on the way to you. Oh and the changes in P. are meant to have lines between them, but they don't always come out._

_Disclaimer: I do not own anything; all characters belong to L.j Smith or Annie Dalton. I do not own any caramel shortbread either, not even the virtual kind, as I gave it to ShadowKissedVictoria._

Not the Wildpower

I watched as the faces of many people flitted past me. I wasn't really paying attention, even though it was 'big day'. Today was the day I would meet the wild powers. I'd been deemed that important. Of course I'd heard about them. An awful lot about them. But I'd never met them. I 'd not had the chance to use empathy and my err… other powers upon them.

I picked up from the scattering of thoughts and emotions around me, that I'd be meeting more than these 'wild powers,' many other 'soulmated' couples would be there. The soulmate principal was intriguing to me. We had something similar back home, only in larger groups (though the romantic parts were only in couples…normally).

Sighing mentally, I pulled my mind back into my mind. I was worried I hadn't heard from the rest of my group and a worried and confused empathy wasn't good. I'd had enough of skimming the surface thoughts that I could read from those around me; mind reading isn't always pleasant.

Bored, I dug into the bag at my side. It was strange I didn't get any odd looks as the bag was charmed from view. My hands found the cover of a book. I opened it and flicked through. Until I was needed again, my brain struggled to understand the way the author saw the world. I flipped to the cover. It was written by 'N.A.T.S'. No wonder it was odd. She had a twisted way of thinking. I sobered at thought of what her last idea had done to us. Once more I immersed myself into a detailed explanation of how different universes were put together.

***==== What could have been minutes or hours later, depending on 'N.A.T.S''s view of time ====***

A polite cough raised me from my exploring the genetic make-up of porpoises. I raised my head from the certainly odd book. Someone I didn't recognize was standing in front of me.

"They're ready for you now, Sir." He said gesturing to a door.

As I placed my hand on the doorknob, I couldn't help but wince. Now would be the time when many of my secrets would be spilled. As I pushed, I thought of ways I could cover my tracks. I shook the thoughts away. I wasn't like Mel. I couldn't lie, and so I couldn't hide behind them.

The door opened onto a well-lit room. Lots of people sat and stood around its edges.

I saw what was clearly intended to be my place, an armchair in the midst of the crowd of new faces.

I walked purposely to my place and sat in it. Then I looked around the sea of faces surrounding me. I could clearly tell which were the "soulmated' couples I'd heard about. I also had my suspicions about who the 'Wildpowers' were too. I used my common protocol of not speaking until someone spoke to me.

A young woman of around seventeen spoke first. It was then that I noticed almost everyone in the room looked to be in their late teens. The girl had white blond hair, cropped close to her skull. Her features were doll like and her eyes a startling shade of violet. She was sitting closer than a friend would to one of the guys in the room.

"Hi, I'm Gillian and these," she said gesturing around her, "are some of circle Daybreaks newest members.

"Almost all of us have soulmates." Someone else started. "We're a variety of different species, and, of course, three of the Wildpowers are in here."

" Whoa, Whoa, slow. Introductions first. Remember your first times meeting everybody." A girl with features close to Gillian's glared at people into room, then her face softened and she turned to me. She had an impish face and long blond hair. "I'm Iliana, a witch and a Wildpower." I saw kindness in her eyes.

"Keller," said the girl next her, who had long black hair and dazzling green eyes. "I'm a sort of sister to Iliana, and a shapeshifter." The introductions carried on round the room.

"Galen, Keller's soulmate, I'm another shapeshifter." A guy next to Keller called out.

"Delos, Vampire, Wildpower, Maggie's soulmate." Someone ticked off on his fingers.

"Maggie, I'm human… for now." The girl next to Delos said with a wink at the end.

"Jez, I'm half human, half vampire, a Wildpower." A girl with flaming red hair said.

"Morgead, Vampire, Jez's soulmate." This guy had a chill in his voice that I didn't like.

"You've already met Thierry and I," said Hannah from the back. I hadn't noticed them. " But for the record, old soul and made vampire. And is anyone else getting that sense of de-ja-vous?" There were several yeses to that.

" Rashel, human but a vampire hunter." A girl that could have been Keller's twin restarted.

"Quinn, made vampire and Rashel's soulmate." I swear if the room had been much darker, I wouldn't be able to see him from all the dark vamp vibes radiating off him.

" David, human, soulmate to Gillian, who you've already met. She's a witch, by the way." Sigh. So many new people.

" Thea, witch, I have a cousin, Blaise, but she can't be here tonight. Soulmated to Eric"

" Eric, I'm human, 'just barely,'" he said, glancing at Quinn when he tagged the last part on.

"Ash, vampire that is not sleeping through the meeting this time, soulmate: Mary-Lynette, who isn't here." A blond boy whom I'd expected to be a shapeshifter. "Also not here, my three sisters and various appendixes. A group has gone on a mission."

"James, vampire, distantly related to almost everyone in this room, my soulmate's Poppy."

"Last but not least, MOI! Poppy, I was human changed into a vampire by Jamie. I have a brother, a male witch" This chimed from the mouth of what, at first, I'd thought was stray energy.

"So… What about you…" Iliana began to dither. " We thought that you may be, it might be possible, you know, that there's only three of us… Are you the fourth Wildpower?"

"Not possible." It was hard not to laugh at them. " I'm not seventeen. I'm from another world, where I played a role similar to that of a Wildpower. And the last one your looking for is 'One from the twilight, to be with the dark.' I don't mix well with darkness. We're not… compatible." Huh. More shocked/interested faces. Life can be so repetitive.

"So… we've got to keep searching?" Keller asked.

"For now, yes," I nodded. " But at this very time, I'm sure there are many questions you wish to ask me, so I'll take the time to tell you about myself. It will be quite difficult for me to do; I can't lie but if I tell you too much, there is a chance that a 'stray' lightning bolt will 'accidentally' hit me. So, here goes nothing.

My name is Rueben Bird. I have no definite age, as I never incarnated into a human body; I am of a spirit world. I belong to two organizations similar to this one. Back home are the light agencies, and I am a trainee for them. I also belong to 'N.A.T.S. 's army, a more elite thing." There was a rumble of thunder that shook the house. "Enough on that before someone blasts me to shreds.

Back home is something similar to the soulmate principal. Only it's more to do with friendship and it's in larger groups. I'm part of such a group. We do have it purely for couples too, and it is plausibly possible to belong to more than one group, but that rarely happens.

I'm part of a group of four, two guys, two girls. We were on a rescue mission before I got here: our leader had been 'captured' and wouldn't have lasted much longer without our help. She plays spy in an illegal research facility. I been in there, and it is not a pretty sight. We freed all the prisoners, got them through portals, but before we could go, the last portal turned scatter. We were split up and dumped in a random universes.

Good news is I can still use all my powers. I'm empathic, can turn invisible, change peoples' emotions, teletransport and skim surface thoughts, among… other things. This does have downsides, for example, I'm influenced by the emotions in a room,I pick them up and amplify them. It has a spiraling effects. I know I need to find the others and get home, but in reality, it won't be that easy. Not only are my friends looking for me, but also there are many enemies I've made over the years. I can't let you get mixed up in this without some serious oathmaking. Otherwise if you attack them, or I attack your enemies, the veils between our worlds will fall, and hell will, quite literally, break out."

_A/N: Please, Please, Please review! Give me ideas for this story. Should Rueben's friends find him? What of his enemies? Who should turn up? Thanks for reading!_


	4. Dreamer

_A/N: Sorry it's been a bit since I updated. I've been working on a really long chapter for my other story. But that's done now. I think (therefore I am)._

_Disclaimer: I cannot claim anything that belongs to Annie Dalton or L.J Smith, not even one of their lunchboxes._

Dreamer

Because I couldn't sleep didn't mean I couldn't dream. 'Dream' had many meanings. It still does: To hallucinate in your sleep. To think of goals you wish to carry out in your life. To have your mind open, working in mysterious ways, trying to tell you something you are too blind to see. Something the will clear as fresh snow afterwards.

I was trying to access the third state of dreaming.

My body was sitting on the bed in a guest room at the Daybreak safe house. My mind was traveling through ever-changing worlds. Pictures flashed beneath me.

_Where are the others?_ I directed to the ground beneath me. It answered by flashing pictures at me so fast I couldn't make them make sense.

_Where is Mel? And slower this time!_ I thought back. Pictures of a large town or a small city flashed by. Images of detached houses. A bookstore and a cathedral. An old castle-like building. As quickly as they began, they stopped.

_Where is Brice?_ Without hesitation, I was shown dark corridors, a volcano and a hallway full of children, in some form of uniform.

_Where is Lola?_ The pictures showed a city that was clearly New York. A run down church, then an old cathedral. Dark runic marks. Monsters crawling in shadows.

I paused before asking the next question._ Where am I?_ A single image flashed back: Four people surrounded, no, engulfed, in a mass of blue.

_Defiantly the third type of dreaming,_ I thought._ So cryptic._ Why couldn't the universe work in simple ways? But then I knew that. It was a whisper that had run through my veins since I was created:_ it has to be; otherwise existence would be no fun._

Drowsily, I pulled my mind back into my head. I blinked bleary eyes, trying to make sense of the room in front of me. There were candles everywhere and bedside lamps clustered on every surface, their heads bent to the ground, as if they were worshipping some kind of lamp-ish deity. Perfectly normal, for me at least, apart from the door that was vibrating rhythmically. The candle flames flickered; sending eerie shadows skitting across the walls. Then I heard the banging. The vibrations it caused were moving my hair.

I moved quickly and silently to the door, hoping I hadn't kept the person outside waiting for very long. There were some people in the safe house that would contribute better to my health if I did not piss them off. People like, for instance, Keller, whose fist stopped in mid bang as I whipped open the door.

She did, in fact, look pissed off. I hoped it had something to do with the last person she spoke to, not me. Her eyes were too precise to be called daggers. They were the sharpest, thin bladed knives, ones that made daggers look crude, heavy and clumsy. Her face was smooth and unreadable, but the vibes I could feel radiating off her told me all I needed to know. She wasn't just angry. There was more to it than that. Hatred, anguish and irritation.

As an empath, I'd advise to stay away from Keller for a few days. Let her cool off. Particularly if you're one of the people who angered her in the first place.

"I've been told to tell you that 'dinner is served' or about to be." She said, barely muting the anger in her voice. Her manner acted a little haughtier as she ticked off the clichéd words in a fake posh accent. ^_A/N a British accent is NOT a posh one. I am British, and have a posh accent, but cannot understand most off the land, as their voices are so different to mine, it all becomes a garbled mess to me.^ _Keller turned on her heels and walked away, muttering under her breath, without looking back at me.

I sighed. It might as well be impossible to find my way back to the numerous dining rooms that I knew the safe house contained. And those were only the ones I'd seen in my sorts stay, it was highly probable that there were more I hadn't seen. I could wander the hallways, asking around to see if anyone knew where I had to go. But that would take so long the food would be cold, if not gone off, by the time I got there. I simply cannot handle hot food gone cold. Eugh. That's come from someone who has spent over three months living off trail mix, the main ingredient of which being brick dust.

There was, however, a far quicker way I could find them. I gathered as many of my many senses as I could hold at one time, then sent them to explore. I was looking for the vibes of Lady Hannah and Lord Thierry, and whoever else was eating with them. As the signals bounced back to me, the echoes revertabrating around my head, I followed them to their source.

Before I came to the wall, I changed the way my molecules were held together. I was now invisible to the eyes of mortals and … other creatures alike, as well as able to slip through solid surfaces. Ghost-like, I glided silently through the mansion.

I melted back into the human world in the corner of a red painted dining room. The corner I was in held no doors or windows. There wasn't even a secret passage behind the portrait of a stern looking Lord that hung on the wall behind me. Candlelight and the roaring fire lit the faces of the Lord and Lady of the house, the Wildpowers and their soulmates and the maiden of all the witches, Aradia.

Their faces turned to me as I slid into the one spare seat at the table. Eight pairs of eyes looked on curiously at me. It was clear I had been the topic of the preceding conversation.

That was when I realized the whole 'dinner' set up might have been a test.

**Aradia's P.O.V**

I had heard of the new arrival in the safe house, and decided to pay a visit. The words of our newly made prophecy rang around my head, their echoes carving trails of wonder and mystery inside my mind. _Who and what was Rueben?_

Aside from my internal ponderings, I could hear Lord Thierry talking to Keller. He was explaining tonight's plan to her: Thierry, the Wildpowers and their soulmates, Rueben and I were to have a formal meal this evening. At least, we hoped Rueben would be there. The idea was to invite Rueben at the last minute, but not tell him which room we would be in and see if he turned up. We planned on using a dining room he had not seen yet.

I was interested to see if his presence at the dinner would spark any visions, about him or otherwise. From what I'd heard, he often gave information away freely, but most of it was of little use or not fully explained. Very few had any idea who this boy really was.

***====That evening, at a certain dinner party====***

It was Bob's fifty third birthday, and he, his friends, wife and children had gone out to celebrate. They were eating enchiladas in a Mexican diner on a busy street in Cardiff, Wales. Outside, rain poured from the sky, to drip down walls and run into gutters. It was a miserable day.

Inside the Mexican diner, dull lights barley penetrated the haze that seemed to be half water and half smoke. The muted murmur of voices was so low that the fly that was crawling down the wall could be heard above them. The food that had been produced by a heavily tattooed chef may not have reached health and safety standards.

The meat was gritty and couldn't be identified as one particular animal. The sauces seemed to be mixtures of tomato ketchup, chili powder, coke and an unknown brown substance. The things that most closely resembled bread were too floury and incredibly dry. It bared no resemblance to the high-class meal that was taking place thousands of miles away.

***====That evening, at Lord Thierry's dinner party, or just before it. ====***

**Hannah's P.O.V**

Eight of us were seated in the red painted dining room. A fire crackled invitingly in the corner of the room, casting orange light over our faces. The eight of us were trying to engage in small talk to pass the time before the ninth guest arrived, but the conversation kept drifting to one subject; whether he would turn up or not.

After an eternity of icy silence, Morgead spoke up on the subject we were all interested in, but were too polite to approach.

"Do you think he'll get here?" He asked, casting a glance around the table.

"Keller is normally a reliable person, so the message must have got to him." Iliana was ever protective of her bonded sister.

"This test we've set him may have been too difficult for him to tackle." Aradia added.

"…Or he may not have been bothered to turn up." Jez put in with an evil smile at the end.

"You do realize he's not technically late yet." I halted the conversation after looking at my watch.

That was three seconds before Rueben slid into the free seat at the table, having come from the side of the room with no doors or windows. There wasn't even a secret passage behind one of the paintings of the Redfern and Harman ancestors. Either he'd been standing there since before he came in, or some seriously freaky crap was going on.

"Sorry, I got held up." His eyes scanned our faces, as if daring us to object.

"You're not late, we just came early." I told him, then dropped my voice to add the last bit. "Though you're only just on time."

"Well, I was as near to sleep as I can get before Keller… distracted me." His eyes gleamed with inner amusement, laughing at an untold joke.

The talk was cut off by a group of waiters, specially employed for serving any fancy meals Thierry chose to throw, glided into the room carrying an array of plates, trays, jugs, jars and various other items. In minutes the table was almost groaning from the weight of food. Mentally, I winced, if this was the first course, what was yet to come? Though I loved much of the fancy food being served, I knew better than to gorge myself. It was well within the laws of the universe there were many more dishes still to be served. We could be here for some time.

***==== 8 courses later ====***

**Rueben's P.O.V**

Chatter had died down after most of us had stuck down to devour the vast amounts of food that had been placed before us. As the evening dragged on, we found there was little more room in us to be stuffed with food, and no one seemed to want to try the Roman style of banqueting. Having taken a small jaunt to Nero's Rome, I hoped never to see anything like that sort of behavior again. I had seen that over half of Nero's supporters weren't human, and they were the one who had started the tradition. I also recalled that very few Night Worlders had anything to do with Nero. Though he was powerful, he was only human, and that made it business that involved far too much of vermin than was acceptable for one to be seen around. The level of noise gradually rose as one by one we reached our stomachs' capacity.

"Do you get good food back home?" Iliana gave what I thought was a somewhat weak start to a conversation.

"The food business is very competitive back home. There's no room for people who don't serve decent stuff." _…And we also hate food poisoning there. _I added on in silence. "My friends and I have a personal favorite; a little student café that serves everything from homemade oat cookies to Aztec hot chocolate. Or they do when the new waitress gets the order right."

"What's school like there anyway? If you're favorite café is a student hangout, surely you're a student there?" Galen spoke almost too soon; it was clear that he didn't want the conversation to dwindle into awkward silence, like I knew it soon would.

"I'm not a student, I'm a 'trainee'. Almost all the schools are run by the agency, and most people end up working for them. Everyone has to board, and there's a lot of competition between schools. Most, including my school, have everyone, 4 to 18 years, on one campus, so it does get a little crowded, but we tend to stick around in groups: we're very social people." I deliberately left out what sorts of lessons took place, the extracurricular activities and what we got up to in 'free time'. They already knew I wasn't a 'normal' person (though there weren't many of those these days) and I didn't want to give them too much unnecessary information.

"So why did you come here then? Your home sounds like a nice place, unless there's some sort of point we're missing." Lady Hannah's ageless brain struck the priceless question.

"It was an accident. Nothing went right after N.A.T.S came. She disrupts nature for higher purposes, so what happen to the four of us isn't unusual. Those that work for her, like me, can become terribly damaged from it, but so many benefit from it that we can't help but hang off her every word." For one of the few times in my existence, I was unsure of what to say next.

I looked at the faces around me. They were open and free. These people were facing war, but they weren't fully there yet. I did not see the hardness in theirs eyes that was bought upon those who saw turmoil and learnt to live with it. So much of that I had seen long ago.

I didn't know if they were ready for my story yet, or if N.A.T.S would let me tell it. Still, I had made up my mind. No whim of any other would stop me from weaving my sorrowful yarn into cloth. This would be were secrets were spilled.

"I don't know where to start this; it all began so long ago, before time. N.A.T.S is one of nine. That nine are one of another two groups of nine. The twenty-seven of them are probably the most important beings there are.

The three groups don't mix much, in fact they can't. Group 1 live in Maisty, a city the size of Earth on a planet the size of the sun, and are led by Aliceiana. They have a habit of keeping to themselves, but are the only ones to have been 'awake' for all time.

Group 2 are seen everywhere, a sort of gang of uber-travellers. They are led by N.A.T.S, and try to help those in need, if they help in return. N.A.T.S is forming an army for the final, final battle. The first group awakened them around 14 years ago, but pay little attention to the laws of time. They play conscience to group 3, who control their movements, somewhat.

Group 3 are humans, but are isolated from the others, in an out-of-bounds universe. The library is the base point for all universes. They all broke off from it, the last around 2000 years ago, when the library was isolated. Every book, film, story etc. in there is real, the gateway to another world. Everything the librarians see controls the movement of their 2nd group counter-part." I stopped then, to look at their faces. Different emotions splayed across their faces. The same emotions my empathy picked out of the air.

"So where do you tie into this, then?" The question caught me off guard, even though I'd been expecting it and was ready to answer.

"I was one of the first N.A.T.S recruited. I end up everywhere and meet everyone I stop people from wandering where they shouldn't, and attempt to improve my pityfull attempts to explain everything. Right now though, I'm lost. I wasn't sent here, though I've heard of your world before. I'm trying to find the positions of my teammates, so we can go back home. So far, I've had no luck."

"So where is this 'N.A.T.S' right now? Why can't she help you?" Delos' tone was overly sarcastic.

"Well," I began, "She has an alert that tells her when someone is talking about her behind her back, to stop spies and stuff. That means she's probably-"

"Probably standing in the corner listening to every word you say."

The voice came out of the corner nearest me, disembodied until halfway through the sentence, when she apparated in full sight, displaying all her terrible beauty. One of the nine had appeared.


End file.
